2024-08-26-韩国央行-高物价与消费_关注家庭消费篮子和金融资产的异质性影响（英）_17页_2mb

Key Issues Summary

Overview

• Inflation trends post-2021: Consumer prices rose by 12.8% cumulatively (3.8% annual average), more than double the 1.4% average in the 2010s, driven by supply shocks and demand pressures. Goods inflation was particularly severe, increasing nearly three times faster than services.

• Impact on consumption: High prices reduced real purchasing power and constrained consumer spending, especially in 2021 and 2022, leading to a sharp slowdown in goods consumption. Services consumption partially recovered due to pent-up demand but slowed again with higher interest rates.

Heterogeneity Effects

• Vulnerable groups: The elderly and low-income households experienced higher effective inflation due to consumption baskets with a larger share of essentials, yet public transfers ameliorated some negative impacts.
• Assets and liabilities: Households with high nominal net positions (NNP), such as the young (with leasehold deposits) and elderly, suffered greater losses from inflation, while those with mortgages benefited from liability devaluation but faced offsetting higher interest costs.

Quantitative Analysis

• Consumption reduction: Price increases slowed private consumption growth by about 4 percentage points in 2021 and 2022 due to purchasing power losses. The Fisher channel (wealth redistribution) reduced aggregate consumption by roughly 0.9 percentage points cumulatively.
• Long-term outlook: As inflation decelerates, consumption constraints ease, but elevated prices redistribute income negatively and exacerbate vulnerabilities, underscoring the need for policies to stabilize prices.